Illustrations for Mikhail Stelmakh's book "In the Hedgehog's Windmill" 1956

This illustration by Hryhorii Havrylenko, for Mikhail Stelmakh's book "In the Hedgehog's Windmill", feels like a memory, doesn't it? You can almost hear the scratch of the pen, the artist making thousands of tiny marks on the page; building forms, textures, and light. Look at the way Havrylenko uses line to create a sense of depth, drawing us into this intimate scene. I wonder what it was like for him, sitting there, pen in hand, thinking about hedgehogs and windmills? Did he have a clear picture in his mind, or did the image emerge slowly, line by line? The figures are solid, but the surroundings almost dissolve into abstraction. It reminds me that artists are always in conversation, building on the ideas of those who came before. Ultimately, this illustration is about storytelling, about the power of images to evoke feelings and transport us to another world. What is the story that you can imagine for these figures?